The Role of Source- and Host-Country Characteristics in Female Immigrant Labor Supply

Bredtmann, Julia and Otten, Sebastian (2013): The Role of Source- and Host-Country Characteristics in Female Immigrant Labor Supply.

Abstract

Using data from the European Social Survey (ESS) 2002-2011 covering immigrants in 26 European countries, this paper analyzes the impact of source- and host-country characteristics on female immigrant labor supply. We find that the labor supply of immigrant women in Europe is positively associated with the female-to-male labor force participation ratio in their source country, which serves as a proxy for the country's preferences and beliefs regarding women's roles. This suggests that the culture and norms of their source country play an important role for immigrant women's labor supply. We further find evidence for a strong positive correlation between the labor force participation ratio in the host country and female immigrant labor supply, suggesting that immigrant women assimilate to the work behavior of natives.

• Item Type: MPRA Paper
• Language: English
• Keywords: female labor force participation, immigration, cultural transmission
• Subjects: J - Labor and Demographic Economics > J1 - Demographic Economics > J16 - Economics of Gender ; Non-labor Discrimination; J - Labor and Demographic Economics > J2 - Demand and Supply of Labor > J22 - Time Allocation and Labor Supply; J - Labor and Demographic Economics > J6 - Mobility, Unemployment, Vacancies, and Immigrant Workers > J61 - Geographic Labor Mobility ; Immigrant Workers

References

Antecol, H. (2000). An examination of cross-country differences in the gender gap in labor force participation rates. Labour Economics, 7 (4), 409–426.

Antecol, H. (2001). Why Is There Interethnic Variation in the Gender Wage Gap? The Role of Cultural Factors. The Journal of Human Resources, 36 (1), 119–143.

Bakker, D., Müller, A., Velupillai, V., Wichmann, S., Brown, C. H., Brown, P., Egorov, D., Mailhammer, R., Grant, A. and Holman, E. W. (2009). Adding typology to lexicostatistics: A combined approach to language classification. Linguistic Typology, 13 (1), 169–181.

Barro, R. J. and Lee, J.-W. (2013). A New Data Set of Educational Attainment in the World, 1950–2010. Journal of Development Economics, 104, 184–198.

Bauer, T. K., Lofstrom, M. and Zimmermann, K. F. (2000). Immigration policy, assimilation of immigrants, and natives’ sentiments towards immigrants: evidence from 12 OECD countries. Swedish Economic Policy Review, 7 (2), 11–53.

BBC (2010). Merkel says German multicultural society has failed (10/10/17). http: //www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-11559451.

BBC (2011). State multiculturalism has failed, says David Cameron (11/02/05). http: //www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-12371994.

Becker, G. S. (1965). A Theory of the Allocation of Time. The Economic Journal, 75 (299), 493–517.

Belot, M. V. K. and Hatton, T. J. (2012). Immigrant Selection in the OECD. The Scandinavian Journal of Economics, 114 (4), 1105–1128.

Bisin, A., Patacchini, E., Verdier, T. and Zenou, Y. (2011). Ethnic identity and labour market outcomes of immigrants in Europe. Economic Policy, 26 (65), 57–92.

Black, S. E. and Devereux, P. J. (2011). Recent Developments in Intergenerational Mobility. In O. Ashenfelter and D. Card (eds.), Handbook of Labor Economics, Vol. 4B, Amsterdam: Elsevier, pp. 1487–1541.

Blau, F. D. (1992). The Fertility of Immigrant Women: Evidence from High-Fertility Source Countries. In G. J. Borjas and R. B. Freeman (eds.), Immigration and the Workforce, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, pp. 93–134.

Blau, F. D. and Kahn, L. M. (2011). Substitution Between Individual and Cultural Capital: Pre- Migration Labor Supply, Culture and US Labor Market Outcomes Among Immigrant Women. NBER Working Paper No. 17275.

Blau, F. D., Kahn, L. M. and Papps, K. L. (2011). Gender, Source Country Characteristics, and Labor Market Assimilation among Immigrants. Review of Economics and Statistics, 93 (1), 43–58.

Borjas, G. J. (1987). Self-Selection and the Earnings of Immigrants. The American Economic Review, 77 (4), 531–553.

Borjas, G. J. (1992). Ethnic Capital and Intergenerational Mobility. The Quarterly Journal of Economics, 107 (1), 123–150.

Borjas, G. J. (1995). Ethnicity, Neighborhoods, and Human-Capital Externalities. The American Economic Review, 85 (3), 365–390.

Casey, T. and Dustmann, C. (2010). Immigrants’ Identity, Economic Outcomes and the Transmission of Identity across Generations. The Economic Journal, 120 (542), F31–F51.

Cavalli-Sforza, L. L., Menozzi, P. and Piazza, A. (1994). The history and geography of human genes. Princeton: Princeton University Press.

Chiswick, B. R. (1978). The Effect of Americanization on the Earnings of Foreign-born Men. Journal of Political Economy, 86 (5), 897–921.

European Commission (2003). Treaty Concerning the Accession of the Czech Republic, the Republic of Estonia, the Republic of Cyprus, the Republic of Latvia, the Republic of Lithuania, the Republic of Hungary, the Republic of Malta, the Republic of Poland, the Republic of Slovenia and the Slovak Republic to the European Union. Official Journal of the European Union L 236.

European Commission (2005). Treaty Concerning the Accession of the Republic of Bulgaria and Romania to the European Union. Official Journal of the European Union L 157.

European Commission (2010a). Consolidated versions of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union. Official Journal of the European Union C 83, Luxembourg. Luxembourg.

European Commission (2010b). EUROPE 2020: A strategy for smart, sustainable and inclusive growth. European Commission. http://ec.europa.eu/.

European Commission (2011). Migrants in Europe: A statistical portrait of the first and second generation. Luxembourg: Publications Office of the European Union.

Fernández, R. (2007). Alfred Marshall Lecture Women, Work, and Culture. Journal of the European Economic Association, 5 (2-3), 305–332.

Fernández, R. (2011). Does Culture Matter? In J. Benhabib, M. O. Jackson and A. Bisin (eds.), Handbook of Social Economics, Vol. 1A, Amsterdam: North-Holland, pp. 481–510.

Fernández, R. (2013). Cultural Change as Learning: The Evolution of Female Labor Force Participation over a Century. The American Economic Review, 103 (1), 472–500.

Fernández, R. and Fogli, A. (2009). Culture: An Empirical Investigation of Beliefs, Work, and Fertility. American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics, 1 (1), 146–177.

Fernández, R., Fogli, A. and Olivetti, C. (2004). Mothers and Sons: Preference Formation and Female Labor Force Dynamics. The Quarterly Journal of Economics, 119 (4), 1249–1299.

Fogli, A. and Veldkamp, L. (2011). Nature or Nurture? Learning and the Geography of Female Labor Force Participation. Econometrica, 79 (4), 1103–1138.

Gronau, R. (1977). Leisure, Home Production, and Work – the Theory of the Allocation of Time Revisited. Journal of Political Economy, 85 (6), 1099–1123.

Guiso, L., Sapienza, P. and Zingales, L. (2006). Does Culture Affect Economic Outcomes? Journal of Economic Perspectives, 20 (2), 23–48.

Isphording, I. E. and Otten, S. (2014). Linguistic Distance and the Language Fluency of Immigrants. Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, 105, 30–50.

Johnston, D. W., Schurer, S. and Shields, M. A. (2014). Maternal gender role attitudes, human capital investment, and labour supply of sons and daughters. Oxford Economic Papers, 66 (3), 631–659.

Kok, S., Bosch, N., Deelen, A. and Euwals, R. (2011). Migrant Women on the Labour Market: On the Role of Home-and Host-Country Participation. IZA Discussion Paper No. 5817.

Manser, M. and Brown, M. (1980). Marriage and Household Decision-Making: A Bargaining Analysis. International Economic Review, 21 (1), 31–44.

Mayer, T. and Zignago, S. (2011). Notes on CEPII’s distances measures (GeoDist). CEPII Working Paper 2011-25.

McElroy, M. B. and Horney, M. J. (1981). Nash-Bargained Household Decisions: Toward a Generalization of the Theory of Demand. International Economic Review, 22 (2), 333–349.

Pencavel, J. (1998). Assortative Mating by Schooling and the Work Behavior of Wives and Husbands. The American Economic Review: Papers and Proceedings, 88 (2), 326–329.

Reimers, C. W. (1985). Cultural Differences in Labor Force Participation Among Married Women. The American Economic Review, 75 (2), 251–255.

Spolaore, E. and Wacziarg, R. (2009). The Diffusion of Development. The Quarterly Journal of Economics, 124 (2), 469–529.